Geograph - photograph every grid square

For God And St. Andrew
Robert The Bruce
King Of Scots
Planted His Standard
Near This Spot
When The
Scottish Patriots
Under His Command
Vanquished The Army Of
Edward II Of England At
The Battle Of
Bannockburn
24th June – 1314

“We Fight Not For Glory, Nor For
Wealth, Nor Honour But Only And Alone
We Fight For Freedom Which No
Good Man Surrenders But With His Life”

The quotation is a translation from Latin of the final paragraph of the Declaration of Arbroath, believed to have been written by Bernard de Linton, Abbot of Arbroath and appended with 51 seals of the pro-Bruce Scottish nobility. It was sent to Avignon in 1320 to ask the schismatic Pope John XXII to recognise the legitimacy of Bruce's rule in Scotland. He replied affirmatively. It is believed to be the earliest document in European history to express the ideas of popular sovereignty and contractual kingship, containing as it does the threat that Bruce will be deposed if he fails to protect "the community of the realm".

"But were he to abandon the task to which he has set his hand or to show any disposition to subject us or our realm to the King of England or the English, we would instantly strive to expel him as our enemy and the betrayer of his own rights and ours, and we would choose another King to rule over us who would be equal to the task of our defence. For so long as one hundred of us remain alive, we shall never under any conditions submit to the domination of the English. For it is not for glory or riches or honours that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no good man will surrender except with his life."

Research has established that 19 of the 56 delegates who signed the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 were Scots-born, and it has been noticed that many of the phrases used in the Declaration of Arbroath re-appear, albeit in modified form, in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States (1787).

"They [the Scots] became the vanguard of our civilization. These were the men who first declared for American independence. For generations their whole ecclesiastical and scholastic systems had been fundamentally democratic." -- Theodore Roosevelt, US president